Stepping into the portal was like being baptized in a river of fire. It knocked the air out of Sabine's lungs. Her eyes watered, and she gasped for breath, her throat burning. When she finally landed on something solid, her legs buckled out from under her, and she fell to her knees, coughing and wheezing. The ground was hot, and she felt that without her leathers she would have been badly burned. When she finally opened her eyes, they began watering against the heat and smoke in the air, and she shivered.
"By the Nine…"
Everything she saw was bathed in a red glow, from the toxic clouds in the sky, to the barely-cooled lava of the ground, to the strange, whip-like plants that grew over the nearby rock formations. As she stared around at the horrific landscape, she shuddered violently, despite the heat.
'Evergloam was never like this. Apocrypha either. Where in Shadow's name am I?'
Muffled shouting drew her attention, and she looked up. Not far away, a man was engaged in battle with a daedroth, its low growl sending a fresh shiver down her spine. The man wore the cuirass of the Kvatch city guard, and she realized that he must be one of the men Savlian sent in to close the gate. One of his compatriots lay nearby, nearly torn in two by the daedroth's jaws. Sabine forced herself to her feet and drew an arrow, holding her breath as she took aim.
The arrow struck true, burying deep in the daedroth's scaly hide. The beast turned toward her, opening its jaws wide. When it roared, she swore she could feel the vibrations all the way down into her bones, and she hurried to nock another arrow. The guard, seeing his opening, raised his sword high and drove the tip of his blade deep into the monster's neck. A spray of blood, steaming and hot even against the burning land, sizzled where it landed too close to the lava pool. Sabine relaxed her hold on her bow and came forward, catching the guard's attention as he tried to catch his breath.
"Thanks for that," he panted. "I'd have been dead for sure without your help." He slumped his shoulders, the tip of his dripping blade resting against the ground as he leaned forward. Defeat had etched itself deep into his features, and weariness weighed him down.
"Are you all that's left?" She glanced around them. The deceased guard lay just to her right, and through a gap in the gate ahead she thought she could see more guards, though they too appeared to have been slain.
The man before her nodded. "Ambushed," he said slowly. "Savlian sent us in to close the gate, but they knew we were coming. Had traps prepared. We didn't stand a chance. They… I think they dragged Menien off. I don't know where."
She put a hand to his shoulder. "Head back through the gate. The captain still holds the line." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "I'll head in and see about finding this 'Menien'."
The man stared at her for a moment, then nodded stiffly. "They, they still live? Yes. I'll… I'll go back. Thank you. Menien Goneld, that's who you're looking for. Older man, good with a sword, scar on his forearm. I think they headed toward a tower."
With one last push toward the gate, the soldier staggered on, his sword dragging the ground behind him. Briefly, she contemplated whether she should have asked him to stay and fight, but banished the thought when he nearly fell through the portal back into Cyrodiil. He'd be lucky if he were even conscious when he hit the ground. She'd only get him killed dragging him along. She looked down at the dead daedroth at her feet.
"I've the distinct feeling I'm going to regret this, you know," she said quietly.
The creature only continued to bleed out onto the ground. She sighed again, rolling the dead guard for anything of use.
"Right. Let's get this over with." She readied her bow once more and dropped down a little, hugging the cooler sections of terrain as she made her way toward the first tower in the distance. Was it too much to hope that the bulk of this plane's daedra would be otherwise dead or occupied?
The area she tred was indeed mostly clear of daedra. Save the daedroth near the gate, Sabine ran into little resistance outside the towers. The only remaining daedra seemed to mostly be comprised of clannfear and scamps, and she felt no qualms about shooting them down. The first of three towers loomed before her, black and spiky against the perpetually red backdrop. When she opened the door, she couldn't stop the sound of stone grating on stone. She cringed.
Inside, her stomach gave a lurch to see a perforated platform made up the bottom floor, its holes lining up with each of a group of nasty looking spikes that rose up out of the floor. There was a lever to her left, but she didn't dare touch it. To her right rose an oddly curved walkway that spiraled up the tower. Her eyes followed it up, and she could see a metal grating made up the top floor. Just above it, she could make out a cage with someone in it, and something in red and black armor standing nearby. She groaned internally.
'Of course there's a guard. I can't get that lucky.'
Once more she readied her bow, though her mind kept returning to the mace hanging at her side. She didn't really want to have to get that close. Halfway up the tower, the man in the cage saw her. Sabine shook her head fervently, and he gave a faint nod in return, then pretended he hadn't seen anything. As she drew closer to the top level, the caged man turned and began insulting his captor. She stared at him for a moment, then saw the daedra stomp over to his cage. Its voice was eerily metallic, as though it were echoing down a long metal tube.
"Silence, mortal." It sneered at the man. Sabine cringed to hear its awful voice grating against her ears.
While the daedra was distracted, she lined up her shot. A breath to steady herself, and she let the arrow fly. It soared across the last incline and buried deep in the daedra's neck. Its strangled, grating cry was furious as it turned, but Sabine was already on her feet. She raised her mace and charged it, hitting the creature hard in its armored chest. Already off balance from its injury, the creature staggered back, falling over the precipice. There was a puncturing sound, followed by a sickening squelch when it landed on the spikes below.
Sabine lowered her arms and looked over at the man in the cage. "'Your face looks funny?' Really?"
The man shrugged. "Last minute decisions don't leave much time for preparation." He sobered, his hands closing on the bars closest to her. "Listen. You don't have much time. There are two more towers here, and you'll need the key on that dead one down there to get into them. You have to take the sigil stone from its cradle. It's the only way to close the gate."
"Sigil stone?" Sabine frowned at him. "What in Aedra's name is that?"
He shrugged again. "I'm not sure. Some sort of enchanted key, from the sound of it. I heard some of the others talking while they were dragging me away. I don't think they knew I was conscious." He leaned forward, pressing close to the bars. "You have to get that key and close the gate."
"I am, I am. Let me just open this cage—"
"Don't worry about me. Just go!"
Sabine's expression fell flat, and she reached through the bars, slapping the man in the face. He flinched, going silent while she spoke. "Get your act together, will you? Menien Goneld, right?" When he nodded blankly, she huffed. "Get back then. Other side of the cage, please."
He stepped back, still surprised as she studied the cage. There was no door or lock that she could find on it. Sabine narrowed her eyes, then raised her mace again. She hefted its weight once or twice, then pulled back and slammed the mace into the bars. They groaned under the strain and bent to one side, making the cage swing dangerously wide. She pulled back and hit the bars again, harder this time. The groaning gave way to creaking, and she could tell the bars weren't made to hold up to such abuse. One more swing, and the two most battered bars snapped off, their broken, jagged ends hanging down from the top of the cage.
Menien Goneld stared at her from the back of the cage, unmoving.
Sabine huffed at him. "Well, come on."
When he hesitated, she scoffed and reached into the cage, jerking him through the hole by his arm. He flinched when the broken bars scratched at his bare back, but said nothing. Once he was firmly on solid ground, she reached into her pack and pulled out the singed boots and bloodied cuirass she'd taken off the guard down by the gate.
"Here," she said flatly, shoving the items into his chest. "Put these on, or you'll never survive the heat on your way out." While he struggled into the slightly oversized armor, she continued talking in an irritated voice. "Go over this rise outside the door, then straight ahead. Don't make any turns, just walk straight for the bridge at the bottom of the hill, do you understand?" She began pulling him down toward the bottom floor as she spoke. "When you get there, you'll find a dead daedroth and a shredded guard. Go through the gate on your right and report back to Savlian Matius."
Menien hesitated, and Sabine gave him a shove toward the open door of the tower.
"Go. I don't have time to babysit you. Tell Savlian I know how to close the gate, and I'm on my way. Then get some water and sleep."
When he only continued to stare at her, she slapped him again.
"GO."
He jumped, coming back to himself, and ran for the gate without looking back. Sabine scoffed and shook her head, then began searching the impaled daedra. Key in hand, she made her way to the smallest tower on the landscape.
Just before she went inside, she glanced down toward the oblivion gate she'd entered through. She watched Menien stagger up to the flaming portal, hesitate, then leap through with a cry. She rolled her eyes and opened the door before her, disappearing inside.
'Overdramatic fool.'
Sabine exited the tower again some time later, thirsty from the heat and a little ragged, but with nothing to show for her search.
'Nothing but scamps,' she thought, digging through her pack for her waterskin. The water was hot, but welcome on her tongue after so long in the arid nothing that made up the realm around her. She sighed and stowed it away again, turning her eyes on the third and largest tower in the set. 'Must be that one.'
She readied her bow again, and began creeping her way toward the tower's only visible door. A cluster of scamps blocked her way, but she made short work of them with her bow. While retrieving her arrows, she found the body of another of the larger daedra, and frowned. This one looked almost… human, though his face was drawn up into a permanent scowl, and a red tattoo covered most of his features.
'What sort of creature is this?' She wondered, flipping the body over to get at the empty quiver on his back. She felt strange, thinking of it as a 'he', but it was the only way she could describe it. The body was broad-shouldered and strong, and the face was decidedly masculine. Did daedra normally look like oddly corrupted mortals?
She shook her head to banish the thoughts and picked up his discarded bow from the ground next to him. It was black and red, like everything else in this godsforsaken plane, but the limbs were solid, and the string looked fairly sturdy. When she compared it to her own bow, she could immediately see the superior quality of it, and collected the weapon for herself. A quick glance around produced no arrows, but they had probably been used up in the fighting that had killed the creature.
'Now for the sigil stone, whatever that is.' She nocked one of her arrows in her newly acquired bow and made her way inside.
She didn't have long to wait before the opportunity arrived to test out the daedric bow. Several clannfear dotted the lower levels of the tower, and Sabine was immediately impressed with the accuracy and power of the weapon. As she retrieved the arrow from her latest kill, she found herself thinking that she might never go back to Elven again. Now if only she could find arrows to match it…
She was pulled out of her musings by grumbling in another metallic, echoing voice. Up ahead, the narrow hallway opened out into a strangely cathedral-like room, where a humanoid figure in black robes was grumbling. She took aim without thinking, then jumped a little when the arrow struck the side of the creature's head so deeply it knocked him sideways. Her eyes widened as she looked down at the bow in her hand. What was this thing made of? Even as good a marksman as she was, she'd never been so overwhelmingly deadly before.
She shook her head again and eased into the room. There were no other signs of movement, and the door into the next room was ajar. She struggled for a moment to retrieve her arrow from the thick skull of the fallen daedra, shuddering when it squelched free, but forced herself not to dwell on it. She was sure to be nearing the top of the tower by now, and had to keep her eyes open for the sigil stone. She wasn't sure what it would look like, but supposed it would be a case of 'knowing it when she saw it'.
Two more of the humanoid daedra were standing guard on the upper floor of the final room, which made Sabine gag to see. The stone circle around the edge of the floor seemed to be connected to a blackened slave framework of either iron of obsidian, but that wasn't the most revolting part. The entirety of the red dome that rose in the center of the floor appeared to be made of flesh, glistening and pulsing periodically, as though it were alive. Hard ridges arced through the dome, holding it upright like great ribs. There was a hole in the center, through which several white ends of bone protruded, and a pillar of yellow light rose out of it and up to the second level, where it culminated in a strange 'font' of glowing fire and power. In the very center of the cradle, hovering there as though suspended from a wire, spun a shimmering, ridged orb that pulsed regularly.
'That must be the stone.' Sabine's eye was drawn back down to the ramps that led up to the cradle, and her stomach turned again. That same fleshy something made up the walking paths, and every now and again a dark red liquid would drip from them. One hand rose up to cover Sabine's mouth before she could retch, and she tried not to dwell on the knowledge that she had to walk on them to reach the cradle.
'This had better be worth it, Uriel Septim,' she thought miserably, taking aim at the closest of the daedra.
It screamed when her arrow dug into its neck, attracting the attention of the second daedra. The second wore black robes like the one she'd killed earlier, and summoned a clannfear before shouting at her. As the smaller, lizard-like summon charged her, she took aim at the robed daedra. If she could just get a good shot…
She jumped back when the clannfear slashed its claws at her, then took aim and fired her arrow. The clannfear lunged at her, snapping its beak, and she thrust her bow forward without thinking, letting the creature's mouth clamp down on it. They struggled back and forth, the screams of the humanoid daedra echoing in the background. Suddenly, the weight on her bow vanished, and the clannfear wisped away into nothing. She looked up. The other daedra hovered at the edge of the second level, an arrow buried deep in its chest. After a moment, it fell forward, collapsing onto the floor below.
Sabine's shoulders sagged in relief,but she forced herself to keep moving. Her arrows were still dripping with daedric blood when she stood before the sigil stone. This close to it, she could feel a faint thrumming, almost a low hum of magicka in the air, though not any sort of magic she'd ever found before. She reached forward to take the stone, then hesitated when it pulsed again. There was no telling what would happen when she took it, and what if it wasn't safe to touch? She looked around for a moment, then her eyes fell onto the body of the daedra she'd killed first. Using the edge of her mace as a knife, she cut the end of his robes, tearing away a decent swatch of fabric. It was heavier than she'd anticipated, and seemed to shimmer slightly in the light, like a spider's silk. She sifted the fabric between her fingers for a moment, frowning, then draped it over her hands and took hold of the stone.
The effect was immediate. As soon as the edge of the sphere was removed from the glowing light, a shockwave of heat blasted out in all directions, knocking the wind out of her. Before she could recover, the wind then blew back toward the center, which had begun pulsing faster and faster. Sabine held tightly to the stone in her hands, drawing in on herself against the growing heat of the fire before her. She began gasping for air as the heat took everything out of her lungs, dropping to her knees.
'I'm not going to make it,' she thought suddenly. 'This whole tower's going to burn down around my ears if I can't get up.'
She wrapped the stone tighter in the fabric, struggling to rise up onto her feet. Another shockwave, this one bigger than the last, knocked her back down again. The last thing she saw was a searing, blindingly bright light that lingered even after she'd shut her eyes. The ground fell away beneath her, fire roaring in her ears, and everything went black.
